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Expert: - 10/19/2008


Question
There are 18 heads and 50 legs on a farm.  How many are cows? How many are people. Answer 7 cows, 11 people.
What equation would I use to solve this problem quickly?

Thanks in advance,
Tony...

Answer
Questioner:   Tony Carvlho
Category:  Advanced Math
Private:  No
 
Subject:  FINDING THE EQUATION
Question:  There are 18 heads and 50 legs on a farm.  How many are cows? How many are people. Answer 7 cows, 11 people.
What equation would I use to solve this problem quickly?

Thanks in advance,
Tony...
...............................
Hi, Tony,

Try setting up some variables:

Let  C = the number of cows.
    P = the number of people.

Then, since cows and people have the same number of heads (1 each, last time I looked.)

C + P = 18

And, since cows have 4 legs each, people 2 each,

4C + 2P = 50

That's it.

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